by Jack Higgins
‘But I am mad, just like Colonel Henry said. I’ve always known it.’
His hand went into the rucksack and Holley drew his Walther. Justin produced the half-bottle of brandy, waved it at him and drank deeply. Holley dropped his hand, holding the Walther against his leg. Justin replaced the brandy bottle in the rucksack, pulled out a Browning and shot Holley and Dillon in the chest.
Kelly cowered, raising his hands, and his mother screamed, ‘No, Justin.’
He laughed wildly. ‘Your lucky day, Jack, I’m out of here.’ He pushed Kelly to one side, pulled open the door and lurched out, making for the stairs, reaching for the banister to support him on the way down.
Jean, almost demented, dropped on her knees beside Dillon, but found him taking one deep breath after another, and then already sitting up.
‘Body armour,’ he gasped. ‘It’s like being kicked by a mule, but a lot better than being dead.’ He was panting, his voice hoarse, but Holley was already stirring in the same way. As Kelly helped him up, Jean turned and ran out.
Justin was making slow progress getting down the stairs, and she caught up with him as he reached the door.
‘It’s no use, love, there’s nowhere to go.’
He knocked her hand away. ‘Yes, there bloody well is.’ He went down the steps and made by mistake for the Mercedes that Dillon and Holley had parked there.
As he got the driver’s door open, it started to rain, and there was thunder in the distance. He got in and she pulled open the passenger door and scrambled in beside him. By chance, Holley had left the key in the ignition.
‘Justin, please darling, think again,’ Jean said.
‘Oh, no, none of that, Mum. I told you where I was going and I meant it.’ He switched on the engine and drove away.
Dillon, Holley and Kelly came down the stairs together. ‘Are you okay?’ Dillon asked Holley.
‘I’m more angry than anything else. Imagine falling for a cheap trick like that.’
‘So thank God once again for the nylon-and-titanium vest,’ Dillon said, and asked Kelly, ‘What about Drumgoole?’
‘It’s a small flying club just off the coast road. When he flies over from Frensham, he uses a twin-engine Beech Baron. Drumgoole is only twenty minutes from the house, so it’s convenient.’
‘Well, you know the way, so you take us there,’ Dillon told him. ‘Only put your foot down. God knows where he thinks he can hide now, but I’d prefer to put a hand on him while we still can.’
There was very little wind, but it was raining hard now, and gloomy, as night touched the far horizon. The Mercedes turned into the small car park at Drumgoole, but the flying club was closed, not a soul about.
‘Nobody’s here,’ Justin said.
‘That’s usual when there’s no activity, no bookings,’ she said.
There were two Archers, a Cessna 310 and the Beech Baron. ‘There she is, the darling,’ Justin said. ‘Let’s hope Regan’s done his stuff and left the cabin key in the usual place.’ He got out of the Mercedes, walked to the red-painted sand box hanging beside the door of the office and felt inside. He held the key up in triumph. ‘There you go.’
He started to walk towards the Beech Baron, and Jean went after him, begging, ‘Please, Justin, don’t do this. Where will you go? Stay and give us a chance to work this out.’
‘I don’t think so.’ He reached the plane, stepped up on the wing and unlocked the cockpit door. At that moment, Kelly’s Morris appeared up on the road, paused and started down to the car park. ‘Oh, dear, must go.’ Justin scrambled in across to the left-hand seat.
Jean tried to follow him, stepping up on the wing as he switched on the engine. ‘I’m coming with you.’
‘I don’t think so.’ As the propellers started to turn, he shouted above the engine roar, ‘Better this way, Mum,’ shoved her down off the wing, slammed the door and started to move away.
The Morris braked to a halt, the three men got out and the Beech Baron was moving, Jean Talbot running alongside, pleading.
Dillon ran in, ducked and grabbed her, dragging her away, and Justin, gazing out of the cockpit window, raised his thumb. The plane swung round and rushed forward, lifting as he boosted the engines, very fast and very low, and then it started to climb and continued until, perhaps a quarter of a mile out, the engines stopped.
There was silence except for the rushing rain, and Jean Talbot screamed, as if knowing what was going to happen, and the Beech Baron dropped its nose and went straight down into the sea. There was a great fountain of foam, and she cried helplessly as she turned and buried her face against Dillon’s chest and he held her.
She looked up at him, her face swollen with her weeping. ‘Damn you, all of you, with your lies and deceit and endless killing. The world should be better than this.’
She started to cry helplessly, and Jack Kelly came and took her gently from Dillon and held her close. ‘Let’s go home, Jean, back to the Place.’ He nodded to Dillon and said, ‘There’s a trench three hundred feet deep out there. He knew that. This is your Mercedes, I think. I’d go if I were you. Much the best thing.’
They sat in the Mercedes waiting for the Morris to leave, and Dillon got out his Codex, called Roper and gave him a quick résumé of events.
Roper seemed subdued. ‘So that’s it?’
‘If you mean is Justin Talbot dead, you’d better believe it. I suppose recovering the plane is possible, if Jean Talbot wants it. What do you think Ferguson will make of it?’
‘He rang me from the Cabinet Office, so I seized the opportunity to get it over with and I told him what you were up to. He just said: I might have known.’
‘Well, God knows how he’ll react to the result. I’ll be seeing you.’
Holley said, ‘God, but I’m sore.’
‘You’re alive,’ Dillon said. ‘That’s all that counts.’
Holley nodded. ‘Do you think Justin Talbot was mad?’
‘Barking mad,’ Dillon said.
‘So really, it wasn’t his fault, any of it?’
‘It’s a point of view,’ Dillon told him.
Twenty minutes later, when they were close to the outskirts of Belfast, Roper called again and Dillon put it on speaker so Holley could hear.
‘I’ve told him what happened.’
‘And what was his reaction?’
‘He said it was perfect. Justin Talbot dies in a tragic plane crash and that clears the whole thing up without a scandal. As someone else said very recently, you have a great gift for doing the wrong thing, but getting the right result. See you, Dillon,’ and then he rang off.
‘Right for whom?’ Dillon said. ‘Ferguson, the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Office?’ He shook his head. ‘Do you ever get tired, Daniel, really tired?’
‘Sure I do,’ Holley said. ‘It’s a mad world, Dillon, but it’s all we’ve got.’
REQUIEM
15
By the good offices of Blake Johnson, Dillon found himself soon after on assignment to the CIA at Langley on an anti-terrorism programme. The principle was ‘set a thief to catch a thief’, his years on the other side of the fence providing invaluable experience for students.
It was two months before he found himself back at Holland Park, and on the first day Roper said, ‘Something that might interest you is taking place tomorrow.’
‘What would that be?’ Dillon asked.
‘Jean Talbot’s the new Chairman of Talbot International. The board didn’t have much choice, since she owns so much of the firm. She moved back to Marley Court and is back at the Slade as a Visiting Professor in Fine Art, and apparently she’s getting an enormous number of portrait assignments. I was reading her up in Tatler magazine. She’s got an exhibition in Bond Street.’
‘That’s nice for her, but what’s happening tomorrow?’
‘She had a Dutch salvage firm look for Justin and they found him in the Beech Baron. She’s burying him tomorrow at St Mary the Virgin Church in Dun Street, Mayfair.
I thought you might be interested.’
‘Now, do I look like that kind of fella?’
‘Actually, I think you do.’
In any event, an assignment for Ferguson got in the way, Dillon got to the church too late for the service, and things had moved out to the churchyard.
Most Roman Catholic churches in London are Victorian, and St Mary the Virgin was a charming example, with a delightfully melancholic feel to it, crowded with Gothic tombs, winged angels and effigies of children who had died far too young.
He stayed back from the crowd of thirty or forty people standing around the grave with bowed heads while the priest read the prayers for the dying. Jean Talbot looked very fine, the veil on her black hat thrown back, smiling at everyone.
She turned to move back towards the church, talking to people close to her, moving directly towards Dillon, then passing without the slightest sign that they had met.
He was surprised to realize how put out he felt, and the following day, being in Bond Street by the Zion Gallery, he went in to have a look at her collection. It was all excellent, more than interesting, but the big surprise was the portrait of her son.
It was incredibly good, a master-work. It was late in the afternoon and the crowd had thinned and he sat on a bench for twenty minutes looking at it, thinking of Lord Byron. Mad, bad and dangerous to know.
‘You obviously like it, Mr Dillon.’ She appeared from behind him.
‘It’s a very remarkable painting.’
‘Of a very remarkable young man.’
He stood and turned to face her and was amazed that a woman of her age could look so incredibly attractive.
‘I tried to make the funeral, but got held up and missed the church. I did manage some of the funeral, though.’
‘I saw you.’
‘I didn’t know that.’ He was lying, of course, and she knew it.
She turned to look at the painting again. ‘My son was a deeply troubled man and a great deal of it was not his fault. I sometimes think I didn’t really know him.’
‘Oh, but I think you did,’ Dillon told her.
‘You think so? Justin once told me about my painting that I was not only good, but I was too good. That I didn’t just go for appearance, I got what was inside. Would you agree?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Of course if I did your portrait, I’d find a lot inside. You see, I know an awful lot about you: I’ve made it my business to find out. I just want to say I appreciate why you had to shoot my son in the Khufra. After all, he’d shot that wretched Colonel Hakim, so I don’t really blame you.’
‘That’s very decent of you.’
‘On the other hand, he was my son, so I can’t possibly forgive you, either. So what’s to be done?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ Dillon said.
‘Have you killed, I suppose. It’s one of the advantages of being so incredibly rich – anything is possible.’
Dillon took a close look at her. She was serious. The woman he was looking at was not the same person she’d been in Kilmartin.
‘I suppose it is,’ Dillon said.
‘So, you have much to look forward to.’
Dillon stood there for a moment, then glanced again at the portrait of Justin Talbot hanging on the wall.
‘He was right,’ Dillon said. ‘You do get beneath the surface. But I just realized something.’
‘What is that, Mr Dillon?’
‘I thought it was Colonel Henry’s mad eyes staring out at me from Justin’s portrait. Now I realize they’re yours.’
For the first time since he’d known her, that porcelain face cracked. ‘I loved him, damn you, more than anything in this life.’
‘Yes, I thought it was something like that. Well, ma’am: people have been trying to kill me in one way or another for years. I’m still here. But you’re welcome to try.’
He walked away quickly, out into Bond Street. She hurried after him, furious, but when she reached the pavement crowded with people, he was already gone, vanished into thin air, as if he had never been.
ALSO BY JACK HIGGINS
The Valhalla Exchange
To Catch a King
Dillinger
The Run to Morning
The Eagle Has Landed
A Prayer for the Dying
The Last Place God Made
Storm Warning
Day of Judgment
Solo
Luciano’s Luck
Touch the Devil
Exocet
Confessional
Night of the Fox
A Season in Hell
Memoirs of a Dance-Hall Romeo
Cold Harbour
The Eagle Has Flown
Eye of the Storm
Thunder Point
On Dangerous Ground
Sheba
Angel of Death
Drink with the Devil
Year of the Tiger
The President’s Daughter
Flight of Eagles
The White House Connection
Pay the Devil
Day of Reckoning
Edge of Danger
The Keys of Hell
Midnight Runner
Bad Company
A Fine Night for Dying
Dark Justice
Toll for the Brave
Without Mercy
East of Desolation
The Killing Ground
Rough Justice
A Darker Place
Wolf at the Door
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2010
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Copyright © Harry Patterson 2010
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